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Bacteria-killing Viruses Could Make Medical Implants Safer

Researchers attach “viral hitmen” to surfaces to demonstrate a possible antibacterial defense for catheters and other medical devices.

May 10, 2013

Medical implants like catheters and pacemakers can be a hotspot for bacteria, which grow in hard-to-treat films on the surface of such devices. Scientists and engineers are taking different approaches to changing the surface of implants so bacteria can’t take hold. For example, some groups are developing polymer films with structures that prevent bacterial growth (see “Pillowy Antibacterial Polymers”), while others are developing coatings that slowly release antibiotic compounds over time (see “Safer Joint Replacements” and “Innovators Under 35, 2007: Christopher Loose”). And now, researchers from Clemson University in South Carolina and the University of Southern Mississippi have described how a layer of bacteria-killing viruses could help prevent bacterial infections.

In a study published in Biomacromolecules, the investigators describe a new method for attaching bacteria-busting viruses, also known as bacteriophages, to plastic and Teflon-type materials. When a bacterium gets too close to these enemy-coated surfaces, a tethered bacteriophage can grab on and inject its genetic material into the bacterial cell where it is copied and turned into many more bacteriophage. Eventually, these virus copies burst open the bacteria, killing it. Each newly freed bacteriophage can then go on to infect more bacteria (the authors note that this “amplification effect” could make it hard to control the population size of the bacteria killers).

The researchers show that E. coli and the species of bacteria that causes staph infections can both be killed by tethered bacteriophages. The team writes that their method could work with almost any surface, and add that beyond fighting infections, their idea could also be used as a “technological platform for the development of bacteria sensing and detecting devices.”

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I’m the biomedicine editor for MIT Technology Review. I look for stories where technology stands to improve human health or advance our understanding of the human condition.

I joined MIT Technology Review in March 2012 after… More a brief stint in the Washington, D.C., news bureau of the scientific journal Nature. Before I ventured to the East Coast, I spent several years in the San Francisco Bay Area as a doctoral student in molecular biology and one whirlwind year in science-writing boot camp in Santa Cruz.

In California, I wrote for the Stanford University press offices, the Multiple Sclerosis Discovery Forum, and the Salinas Californian newspaper. I grew up in a small town in eastern Texas, surrounded by bird song, rolling cattle fields, and lanky pine trees. When I’m not exploring health tech, you will probably find me cooking or giggling over an exceptional LOLcat.

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